geoff white, talking points for iscc first symposium
TRANSCRIPT
What’s the internet for?
Who’s the internet for?
Who’s the internet debate for?
Geoff White, Barrister & Solicitor For the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
What’s the internet for?
9/24/2015 2 Geoff White | For PIAC
What’s the internet for?
9/24/2015 3 Geoff White | For PIAC
What’s the internet for?
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What’s the internet for?
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What’s the internet for? 4 service providers’ views (emphasis added) 1. "Email and Web-browsing (and the plethora of activities and
socio-economic contributions that can be achieved through web browsing and email) are the services most necessary to meaningfully participate in the digital economy. … We submit that although of interest from an entertainment perspective, high bandwidth applications and services are not necessary to participate in the digital economy."
2. “[O]nly wireline voice is an essential service and that access to Digital Economy Broadband Services is important, but not essential, for Canadians”
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What’s the internet for? 4 service providers’ views (emphasis added)
3. “A number of the popular Internet activities […] are most accurately characterized as satisfying the recreational and entertainment wants of Canadians rather than representing a basic use of the Internet that meets their basic telecommunications needs to actively engage in the digital economy. For example, downloading and streaming movies, television programming and music certainly allow individuals to be entertained through online services, but these do not rise to the level of being essential to the economic or social welfare of Canadians.”
4. “[W]hat Canadians expect they should be able to use the internet for would be much more expansive than what should be considered a basic service as a government supported policy.”
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Who is the internet for? • ISCC: “The Internet is for Everyone” • Question: Is it?
– Legally? UN says it’s a human right – Regulatory? Not if dial-up access remains the “basic”
standard? – Practically? See testimonials.
• Answer: The internet is not currently for everyone – Access to broadband has two components: availability
and affordability. – Not everyone can access essential services, or sufficient speeds. – #’s of people either don’t have access, or sufficient access, or
affordability.
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Who’s the internet for?
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Who’s the internet for?
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Who’s the internet for?
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Who’s the internet for?
• 80% of Canadians indicate that broadband Internet service at home is essential, to varying degrees, with 37% responding that it is “absolutely essential.”
• 84% of Canadians believe that all Canadians should have access to broadband Internet service at home no matter where they live in Canada, compared to only 15% who do not.
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What’s the “basic” level of internet access (CRTC Consultation 2015-134)
• “50-80” rule • considers a telecommunications service as
“basic” for the purposes of determining required universal service if 50% of the population subscribes to a service, and 80% of those subscribers do so at given speed.
• E.g., if 50% of Canadians subscribed to broadband Internet service, & 80% of those did so at 5 Mbps*, then that is considered, legally, “basic” service. (*using 2013 data)
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Basic telecommunications service (CRTC Consultation 2015-134)
• Do we even need to debate whether broadband access is essential?
• Does it matter if many people use broadband internet for ‘trivial’ matters?
• How is socializing online different from socializing on the telephone?
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The AAC’s key recommendations
• “Basic” should mean “capability to connect via high speed data transmission (“broadband”, currently 5-10 Mbps, expected to be 25 Mbps by 2020) to the Internet “
• Update “basic” definition annually • Implement “Affordability Funding Mechanism”
– $11 monthly subsidy to eligible households (“baseline” case)
– $22 / month under “ambitious” case • Implement “Broadband Deployment Funding
Mechanism”
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The AAC’s key recommendations
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The AAC’s key recommendations
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Who should get to debate these issues?
• Academics? • Activists? • Advocates? • Consultants? • Engineers? • Individuals? • Lawyers?
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Who gets to debate these issues?
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Who gets to debate these issues?
• Answer: Everyone – CRTC has open processes, is engaged in significant
outreach – Part I process allows interested persons to bring
forth any matter, and allow interested persons to intervene.
– Social media enabling broader engagement
• Issue is relevance and weight given to evidence
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